Defining difference between islam and Islamism

INDIA THAT IS BHARAT

 The ism called Islam was founded 1500 years ago. The ism called Islamism has been founded just the other day. Whether the two are as same as tweedledum and tweedledee or as different as chalk and chees this dimwit does not know. What he knows is that all of a sudden nobody is talking about Muslims, the followers of Islam, but everybody is talking about Islamists, the followers of Islamism. The famous fifth-columnist of Indian Express set the fashion when she recently wrote we Indian secularists can’t have truck with Islamist Pakistan, although elaborately explaining the distinct difference between Islam and Islamism. The fashion spread, and Times of India reported that the Islamists of Bangladesh are on the rampage. And now this fashion of Indian journalism has spread abroad, for the British journal Economist has written an article titled Islamists in Russia.

What soft-headed Satiricus has been trying to figure out here is, whatever happened to Islam? Has it been replaced by Islamism? Or has Islam been refined into Islamism? The answer apparently lies in the good-conduct certificate recently issued by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind to Jamaat-e-Islamic Bangla. The Indian Jamaat’s journal Daawat recently wrote in its editorial comment : “The Muslims of Bangladesh are active Muslims. Despite their minds being poisoned with Bangla nationalism and atheistic secularism in 1971 their link to Islam could not be severed. There is no basis for the allegations being levelled against the supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami.” See? They are not bad Islamists, they are only “active” Islami. So they are in no way responsible for the Islamist murder and mayhem going on in Bangladesh,—nor for that matter for the Islamist terrorism in Russia.

Then how come Satiricus did not know this? The answer is simple. It is that Satiricus is a simpleton. He is a miserable moron. He is a hopeless Hindu. Okay, okay, he accepts all that, but he is also a curious cuss. He is curious about that author of those two books he has read one on Islam and Violence, the other on Islam and Terrorism. He was not only a Muslim, he was a self-exiled ex-Pakistani to boot, Anwar Shaikh. What does that show? It shows that when Shaikh left Pakistan he also left behind all understanding of the defining difference between Islam and Islamism, consequently coming to the confounding conclusion that, a small spell-check apart, they were one and the same.

So suffice it to say that the suffix in the Bangla body’s name is not, repeat not, Jamaat-e-Islamist. That being so, Daawat rightly writes : “As far as efforts for the establishment of an Islamic life are concerned, the people in Bangla respect Jamaat-e-Islami….Therefore our government should formulate its policy (about Bangladesh) keeping these facts in view. If a government is formed there based on Islamic principles there is no cause for worry. Such a government would establish better relations with our country because of the presence of 20 crore Muslims in this country.” In other words, secular India’s foreign policy should be guided by Islamic considerations. That would be fittingly in the fitness of things. Otherwise what is the point in having an Islamic core for Indian secularism?

 Go For Pizzagraphy

The European Union is reportedly facing a problem that is serious enough to provide fast food for thought. It is that Italy, a member of the Union, is facing an acute shortage of pizza-makers as high as 6,000, in fact. All Italians like pizza, but not enough Italians like pizza-making. So what to do? Satiricus suggests a solution, and it lies in London. According to the British journal Economist there is a McDonald’s University in a London suburb which has a degree in what the journal calls Burgerology. It is said to be so popular that there are a million applications for admission out of which one in 15 is accepted. Now it stands to reason that a university that has a degree in Burgerology can extend its curriculum to include Pizzagraphy. This way the Brits could explore their way to the European Union’s heart through its stomach.

But if the Brits fail to exploit this opportunity, why not us Indians? Satiricus recalls that not long ago some multi-star hotel in Mumbai had served a 10,000-rupee pizza to some multi-millionaire. So in the considered opinion of Satiricus, during the present times of rather soured Indo-Italian taste-buds let’s have wholesale Indian export not of pizza but of pizza-makers. That would right away restore the familial friendship between the Italian government of Italy and the Italian government of India.

 Catholic Connection

Sonia Gandhi had once chided an Italian journalist for talking to her in Italian by saying, “Speak English, we are Indians.” So now she may be rally happy to see that she had at least one minister in her government who had proved himself to be a literal Indian by practising ‘nepotism’ in the dictionary sense of ‘favouring one’s nephew’. At the same time Satiricus is not sure if the Roman Catholic in her would very much fancy the original connection the illegitimate sons of Roman Catholic popes used to be politely called their ‘nephews’.